Here's my draft, bottom left to top right:
Pack 1 Pick 1 was a very tough pick. There was a mythic Trostani Dischordant, which is probably the best pick and also a $2.50 card. Then there were three very good uncommons, Beacon Bolt, Dimir Spybug, and Glaive of the Guildpact. Since the three gold cards lead toward very different decks, I felt like I could make a statement with the pick. I was worried that I would have trouble building a good Selesnya deck, and I opted for the removal spell. Second pick Experimental Frenzy seemed good. I've only run into it once in draft before, and it was impressive. Rampaging Monument is a card I think people undervalue. I took Mausoleum Secrets just because it's a card I'd like to have, with no intention of playing it in the draft. The rest of Pack 1 was cards I could play in either Dimir or Izzet.
Pack 2 led off with a literal bomb, Expansion // Explosion. I got a string of good Izzet cards followed by some surprisingly late Dimir cards like Artful Takedown. Drowned Secrets in the middle of the pack suggested that I was the only person taking much blue, and I grabbed it with the hope of lucking into a second one in Pack 3 to become a dedicated mill deck.
Pack 3 I opened another mythic, Divine Visitation. This $4 card is hard to play in draft, but it's oddly good with Trostani, so I passed it to my lucky neighbor on the left and proceeded to pass him other Selesnya rares and uncommons for the remainder of the pack, including Emmara and Assure // Assemble, both of which also combo with Divine Visitation, and he thanked me heartily afterward. My first pick Dimir Guildmage in this pack was with the idea still that I was going to be a Grixis (blue-black-red) control deck and maybe even a Drowned Secrets mill deck. As the pack continued, I got a bunch of good Izzet cards that I was missing, including two Electromancers. In the end, I could have drafted differently and had a good Selesnya deck or a good Dimir surveil deck (with the first pick Spybug), but my end result was somewhere between Izzet and Grixis.
So what to build? I've played multicolor mashups in my first two drafts, and I decided to follow the guild focus this time and go pure Izzet.
Once I decided to take out the Dimir and black cards, it was easy to narrow down the rest. The only nonblack cards I cut were Drowned Secrets, Gravitic Punch, and Thoughtbound Phantasm (which really needs a lot of surveil to work). I didn't want to limit myself on sideboarding, so I grabbed a bunch of Swamps and put together a plan in case I needed to change up the deck.
In this format, you hear of "aggressive Izzet" and "controlling Izzet." My deck was sort of in the middle, but leaning toward controlling. That's not ideal, but I felt pretty good about it. I played only 3 of my 5 Izzet Guildgates because I didn't want my starts to be too slow.
Here are my two main sideboard plans:
The first group of 10 cards is the Dimir package. I would take out 2 Mountains, 2 Swamps, Izzet Locket, and some less effective blue and red cards. The Bats are good against decks that can't block fliers and the Vapors is amazing against some aggressive decks. Of course, the two aren't very compatible.
The second sideboard, Drowned Secrets, is for slow matchups where I'm not going to lose to aggressive creatures. Milling opponents out is very possible in this format.
Gravitic Punch can be a beating with Erratic Cyclops, but I didn't ever feel like I just needed to do more direct damage and had the spare mana to do it.
Round 1 vs. White-Blue Fliers
White-blue isn't a supported deck in this format, but he made it work pretty well with a bunch of aggressive white creatures. I won the first game after he was kind of stuck on lands. Then I boarded in the full Dimir package and drew the black cards but not the black mana in Game 2. Game 3 was a long slog, and we went to turns. He had a bit of an advantage but I was able to stave him off until we finished in a draw. Then he gave me the win because he was just playing one round and heading out, so that was nice. Draw, 1-1-1 (official match win).
Round 2 vs. Golgari (black-green).
This was one of my store nemeses, and his deck had nice aggressive starts. Golgari Guildmage did a lot of work, and his green stuff was bigger than I could deal with. The second game was close but I couldn't find the last points of damage. Siding into black didn't help. Loss, 0-2.
Round 3 vs. Boros (white-red).
His mana wouldn't cooperate, and he seemed to be just playing a whole bunch of tiny white creatures. I ran over him pretty easily and finally drew Expansion // Explosion for the first time of the night. Win, 2-0.
Round 4 vs. Dimir Campaign.
This deck was built with a lot of good surveilling and a Disinformation Campaign, one of the most maligned cards in the format. He also had Etrata, who is a good removal spell and roadblock, but otherwise less scary than she sounds. In the first game he built up a big advantage by casting Campaign over and over. I realized this was the matchup for Drowned Secrets. In Game 2 I took out Experimental Frenzy for Drowned Secrets, and I played it on turn 2. Turns out that when every card you cast is blue, you can mill out a slow opponent pretty quickly. He also was surveilling and drawing extra cards a lot, which sped up the process. Game 3 on the draw I took out a Mountain and brought Frenzy back in. I had Drowned Secrets on turn 4 and then got my Frenzy going later after I had played out my hand. Frenzy is awesome fun to play, and I highly recommend it. In this game I essentially had the mill win and lethal attack coming up on the same turn. Win, 2-1.
Round 5 vs. Boros.
At 3-1 I was able to take an intentional draw this round and make top 8, but I played 2 exhibition games with my opponent to pass the time. He had a pretty nasty aggro deck, and we each won one game with no sideboarding. Draw, 1-1 (official intentional draw 0-0-3).
Top 8 Round 1 vs. Golgari with white splash.
He was 4-0 with a draw into the top 8. I had a rough time keeping up with his bigger creatures and lost in two. I guess my deck's biggest weakness is decks with a lot of big creatures, as my removal and creatures are very limited above 4 power and 4 toughness. Loss, 0-2.
I was gifted the top 8 spot anyway by getting the win on the first round draw, so it was fair enough that I couldn't do better. It was also about midnight when we started the round and my brain was turning to mush, but I don't think that mattered much -- these games were not winnable with my draws. They gave us 2 FNM promos for the round, Sinister Sabotage and Thought Erasure, with winner getting to pick, and my opponent took Sinister Sabotage.
The guy who I passed all the good Selesnya cards made the top 8, so I guess I really helped him out. I'll have to find out how far he got.
My "real" final record was 6-7-1 in games and 2-2-2 in matches (one of which was just 2 games for fun). So even though I was in top 8, the overall result was middling. I do like playing this draft format more than I thought I would, but I haven't had a really great deck yet.
Here's what I came away with:
Experimental Frenzy is about $2 and everything else is available on TCGplayer for less, for a sum total of about $6 - $8. I drafted 5 rares, which is above average, and 7 uncommons, which is slightly below average.
I'm excited about drafting Ultimate Masters next Friday. It's expensive but it should be fun. I've already done one mock draft on draftsim.com and I'll do some more before the end of the week. Based on other Masters drafts I've done, I might be able to get an advantage by drafting to win while others draft for money. They're going to open a box for each draft pod, and the prizes will be the box toppers, which range in value from about $30 to over $300 in presale prices.
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